


Shattered Souls

by IAmANonnieMouse



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Forging, M/M, Nobody dies directly in this fic, Original Character(s), POV Outsider, References a Dead Character, but someone is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:51:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmANonnieMouse/pseuds/IAmANonnieMouse
Summary: Sophie hears about him long before she ever meets him.Best forger left in the business,the whispers say.Can be anything you need him to be. Architect, extractor, point. Anything.He sounds like a myth.





	Shattered Souls

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this horrible idea last week, and I started writing it. Sorry in advance. I can't say I'm completely content with how this turned out, but I don't know what else to do with it, so I'm going to leave it as-is. Read on for strange, experimental concept-fic. And for sadness, because someone is dead.
> 
> Shout-out to the namesake of my OFC, [a-forger-and-a-point-man](http://a-forger-and-a-point-man.tumblr.com/), whom I have killed with this fic and angst. *hugs*, darling.
> 
> Also!! Check out the notes at the end to find some absolutely beautiful art that mizunoir made for me <3 <3

Sophie hears about him long before she ever meets him. _Best forger left in the business,_ the whispers say. _Can be anything you need him to be. Architect, extractor, point. Anything._

He sounds like a myth.

But then Sophie takes a job with Ariadne— _the_ Ariadne, who makes mazes that are impossible to solve, who has _invented_ new paradoxes—and Ariadne suggests they bring him on board. Sophie agrees. Ariadne calls him that afternoon.

He arrives two days later, worn messenger bag slung across his chest, dark blue jacket settled comfortably on his shoulders. His short dark hair falls around his face in gentle waves, framing his soft eyes.

“Sophie,” he says, bowing rakishly as he takes her hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Arthur,” Ariadne shouts, running at him straight across the room. He catches her in his arms and hugs her tightly.

“It’s good to see you,” he murmurs.

As they separate, Ariadne playfully tugs on the lapel of his jacket. “You look better,” she whispers.

Arthur shrugs, glancing away. “As good as I can be.”

She smiles sadly, runs a hand along his arm.

Arthur turns back to Sophie, adjusting his bag. “I read your notes on the plane,” he says. “I know you want me to forge his mistress, but I think it would be better if I forged his illegitimate daughter. More secrecy, more guilt. More catharsis, too, if he can reconcile his relationship with her.”

He hasn’t even taken off his jacket.

“Okay,” Sophie says. “That makes sense.”

He smiles briefly. “Cheers.” His American accent clashes with the British mannerism.

Sophie watches him curiously. _Best forger left in the business._

~+~+~

The three of them fall into an easy rhythm, splitting up the work, brainstorming together. Arthur offers to do the research for Sophie and produces massive files about the mark by the end of that same day. His notes are so pristine and organized that Sophie can barely feel guilty for letting him do more than his share of work.

They go under for a test run a few days later. Arthur walks through the entire level, poking holes at every weak spot and pointing them out to Ariadne. It’s only when they have ten minutes left of dream time that he slides into his forge, changing into a prepubescent teenage girl in the blink of an eye.

Sophie stares at him. “Wow,” she breathes. 

“What’s your name, honey?” Ariadne asks.

The girl flicks her long hair over her shoulder. “Tiffany,” she mutters, cracking her gum. “What do you want?”

They wake up.

“Ariadne,” Arthur says, already up, cleaning and spooling his IV line. “Don’t ever call me honey again.”

Ariadne chuckles. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and takes Sophie’s line, cleaning the needle, rolling the cord.

“Why do you do that?” Sophie asks curiously. “The needles are disposable.”

Arthur pauses, glances at the line in his hands. “Habit,” he says, shrugging. “When we first started, nothing in the PASIV was disposable.” He meets her eye. “I forget how young you kids are.”

Sophie flushes. “I know what I’m doing,” she says.

Arthur arches a brow. “I never said you didn’t,” he replies. He turns back to the PASIV. “But you weren’t in dreamshare when it first got started. That’s all. I forget that, sometimes. Things were different then.”

Sophie stares at the line of his back, strangely tense. His cuffs are above his elbows, his collar splayed against the base of his throat. She thinks she sees a hint of ink creeping out from under his loudly-patterned blue shirt.

She isn’t sure what to make of him.

~+~+~

Sophie seeks out Ariadne at the end of the day, finds her poring over her models and sketches.

“How do you know Arthur?” she asks.

Ariadne tucks a pencil behind her ear and rises. “I worked with him on my very first job,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “Ancient history now,” she adds with a smirk.

“Your first job?” Sophie asks.

Ariadne nods. “The inception job.”

The inception job. With Dom Cobb, whose crazy wife killed herself. And the best forger in dreamshare who, rumors said, was the only reason the idea even took. “Arthur was the forger for that job?” Sophie asks, eyes wide.

“No,” Ariadne says, a strange look on her face. “No, Arthur was our point.”

She turns back to her models and drawings. Sophie lets her.

~+~+~

When Sophie gets back to her hotel room, she does what she should have done weeks ago: she researches Arthur.

Arthur, last name redacted, one of the first figures in dreamshare _ever._ Rumored to have started in the military, worked as Dom Cobb’s point man for years. Best point in dreamshare. Then, suddenly, he started forging, and he’s been taking jobs as a forger ever since.

Sophie has never heard of a point man who can forge. But, as Arthur reminded her, she hasn’t been in dreamshare _that_ long.

Still.

~+~+~

When she walks into work the next morning, Arthur is already under, hooked up to the PASIV by himself. He looks more tired like this, more worn around the edges in a way that Sophie can’t quite explain.

She glances at the clock, then unspools a line.

~+~+~

Arthur’s dream is like nothing Sophie has ever seen. Everything is made of straight lines and right angles—but inside the lines, conforming to the sharp edges and pristine corners, colors bleed like impressionist paintings, architecture blurs between classical and renaissance and modern.

Is this what a forger’s mind looks like?

She wanders through the streets, watching Arthur’s projections pass her by. Over time she realizes how similar they look. Half are tall and dark and slim, half are short and thick and brazen. Arthur’s projections travel in pairs, heads bent close together, arms twined. One projection, of the short and thick and brazen sort, flirts with her for a moment, murmuring sweet nothings in a posh British accent, before the other pulls him away with muttered, “Sorry about that.”

Sophie feels the pieces falling into place, barely.

She keeps walking.

~+~+~

Arthur’s sitting at the lake, watching the purple-pink waves swirl past him in impossible patterns. He’s wearing a simple white t-shirt, so thin that Sophie can see the ink of his tattoos through the fabric. His arms rest comfortably on top of his knee, pulled up near his chest.

He’s laughing.

Sophie slowly approaches, circles around one of the willow trees dotting the area, then hesitates.

There’s a man sprawled on the grass at Arthur’s side, grinning lazily up at him. He’s running a hand along Arthur’s leg, easy and slow. 

The man glances up and looks Sophie in the eye. “Ah, Sophie,” he says, beaming. He rises, extends a hand. “So nice to meet you, love, I’ve heard so much about you!”

Sophie knows that Arthur was connected to the PASIV alone. She takes the man’s hand then stares as he bows over it, mouth curled in a mischievous smirk. She’s seen that before.

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” she answers him, smiling instinctively. His happiness is contagious.

“I’m Eames,” the man declares proudly. “Charmed.”

“Eames,” Arthur drawls from his seat by the lake. “Come on.”

Eames immediately turns back towards Arthur, returns to his sprawl at Arthur’s side. “Darling,” he cajoles, “I’m making friends.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, lips curling. “Come join us,” he says to Sophie.

Sophie sits, glances at Arthur over Eames’ prone form. “People talk,” she says slowly. “About Dom Cobb. How he had a shade of his wife in his dreams.” Her eyes flicker down to Eames.

Arthur’s smile sharpens, turns jagged on the edges. “Is it a shade if it’s just another half of you?” he asks.

The lake water halts, swirls frozen mid-motion. Sophie is suddenly, keenly aware of the silence surrounding them. “Is it what?” she asks tentatively.

Arthur looks down at Eames, threads his fingers through Eames’ hair. “Eames,” he breathes, voice broken and shattered and painstakingly pieced back together. “Eames, how did you die?”

Eames brushes his fingers against Arthur’s cheek. “It should’ve been so dramatic,” he says, smirking. “Gunned down by hired assassins, maybe. Mortally injured saving the love of my life.”

Arthur’s eyes flicker shut. “It should have,” he agrees.

Eames turns towards Sophie. “Dreamers don’t have long life spans,” he informs her. “At least, they didn’t used to. Back when this all started. We knew that, but”—he laughs briefly—“we thought we were bloody invincible.”

“We almost were,” Arthur says, staring out at the lake.

“Almost, darling,” Eames says. “The first PASIVs were nothing like the ones you have now,” he tells Sophie. “They were heavy and clunky and nobody really knew what was in them, but nobody really cared. We didn’t have chemists back then, we barely had architects and extractors. It was just one big bloody experiment.”

Eames shifts, idly rubs Arthur’s back. The skin peeking through the wide collar of his shirt is covered with dark ink.

“Nobody asked the important questions,” Eames tells her. “Nobody asked what ingredients were in the drugs that let us dream. Nobody asked what all those gears and wires did.” He laughs softly, bitterly. “Let me just tell you, love, overdosing on Arsenic is not the way to go.”

“Arsenic?” Sophie echoes, eyes wide.

“Who the hell knows why that was in there,” Eames mutters. “Not a lot of it, mind you. But if you dreamed enough, it all started to add up, you know?”

Sophie looks at Arthur, staring, fixated, across the pink lake, jaw clenched.

“And I was under so much.” Eames shakes his head. “Had to figure out what this Forging was, had to know the trick to it.”

“Fucking forging,” Arthur spits.

“I tried to teach Arthur.” Eames smiles. “He never took to it.”

“I knew myself too well and not well enough,” Arthur dutifully recites.

“Quite right, darling,” Eames says.

Arthur turns to look down at Eames. “Except you died,” he says baldly. “You died and I didn’t know myself at all. I didn’t know what I was anymore. But I knew I wanted you to be with me.”

“So,” Sophie says softly, “you became Eames?”

Arthur shrugs. “And he became me.” He laughs, a harsh gasp of air. “It isn’t that hard becoming someone else when you’re already two different people.”

Eames says nothing, wrapping his hand around Arthur’s ankle in a casually familiar gesture. They sit in silence, the three of them, watching the water swirl past.

~+~+~

The job runs without a hitch. Sophie catches a glimpse of Eames while she’s monitoring the projections. He grins at her rakishly and melts into the crowd.

After, as they’re preparing to scatter, she pulls Arthur aside and says, “It was an honor to work with you. You _and_ Eames.”

And Arthur’s face stiffens then melts, and his eyes say everything that needs to be said. He shakes her hand, and hugs Ariadne tightly. He packs up the PASIV, shrugs into his coat. He shoulders his messenger bag, presses a light kiss on Ariadne’s head with a faint smile, then walks away, melting into the crowd.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [Tumblr.](http://iamanonniemouse.tumblr.com/)
> 
> UPDATE: MIZUNOIR MADE ME ART IT'S AMAZING AND GORGEOUS AND YOU SHOULD ALL LOOK AT IT AND SHOWER HER WITH LOTS OF LOVE  
> <http://mizunoir.tumblr.com/post/178422105333/is-it-a-shade-if-its-just-another-half-of>


End file.
